


like a firefly without a light

by Penguin_Lord



Series: Oregon Files: Oneshots and Drabbles [1]
Category: The Oregon Files - Clive Cussler
Genre: Canonical Child Abuse, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Past Child Abuse, Plague Ship, Possibly Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 18:14:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5938207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penguin_Lord/pseuds/Penguin_Lord
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When unwelcome childhood memories return after the events of Plague Ship, Eric Stone finds that he doesn't have to deal with them alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like a firefly without a light

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning: Child abuse. More explicit at the beginning, but it is touched up later. Please, if this is an uncomfortable area for you, go no further. 
> 
> Eric Stone canonically has an abusive father, which he mentions in Chapter 11 of Plague Ship. I wanted to explore it more, since I found it to be an important facet of his past. 
> 
> Title is from Runaway Train by Soul Asylum. If you want something to listen to, that is what I was listening to as I wrote this.

_“You good for nothing son-of-a-whore! I should have gotten rid of you when I had the chance!” A fist came flying from the right, striking the him in the stomach and sending him careening into the kitchen table._

Eric Stone jerked awake with a gasp. Blearily he put the back of his palm to his forehead and glared when it came away damp with sweat. He groaned, noting the numbers displayed on the digital clock on his nightstand. 3:23 a.m. Way too early to be up. But after a nightmare like that Eric knew sleep would not come easily.

He grumbled, but decided the best course of action was to go up on deck and let the cool ocean breezes calm his mind.

It had been a week since the dreams started, right when Juan had given the entire crew some down time after their latest escapade. Julia Huxley started fretting after the third day Eric had shown up to breakfast looking like he’d gone through the ringer, but Eric waved her off with mentions of cruise ships and dead passengers. She highly encouraged him to visit one of the ship’s psychologists but thankfully hadn’t brought up the issue again. He had caught glimpses of her staring at him during meals and knew it was only a matter of time before she showed up at his door in her professional capacity or worse, told Juan or Max about it and let them handle it.

Not that ‘it’ needed handling. He knew perfectly well what was bothering him, not that he would admit it to his colleagues.

It had been years since he’d thought about his father. After fleeing their family home in Ohio and running to his aunt’s house in San Francisco when Eric was 16, he and his mother hadn’t looked back since. They never talked about Eric’s father or the years of abuse. Both were content to let the past be and look towards the future. Eric joined the Navy a few years later and then the Corporation seven years after that.

He’d never told anyone else about his father’s abusive tendencies. Hell, not even when Murph had complained about his own lack luster parents had he admitted to the scar on his right bicep was received from a broken beer bottle when he was twelve.

It’s not like he was ashamed.

~~He was.~~

It wasn’t like he cared what his shipmates thought.

~~He did. He so desperately wanted to please each and every one of them. Juan especially.~~

Trying to ignore the traitorous voices in his head, Eric made his way to the upper deck. He hadn’t bothered with a shirt because he didn’t think anyone would be up at this hour. Well, maybe Maurice would be up. Sometimes it seemed like their Head Steward never slept.

The deck was empty and Eric released the breath he didn’t realize he had been holding. Juan was not the only one on board to be half in love with this lifestyle. Eric himself was hard pressed to name a favourite place on earth that wasn’t somewhere aboard the Oregon. From the command centre to the deck to his modest stateroom, he loved this ship.

The cool air on deck helped to alleviate some of the pent up stress. He walked steadily towards the railing and gripped it with sweaty hands. He forced himself to take one breath and then another until he focused on nothing but the constant expansion and contraction of his lungs. It helped. He didn’t know for how long he stood gazing out at the ocean, feeling the ship rocking on the waves. He was so transfixed that he didn’t even hear the door open to let someone else onto the bridge deck.

“I thought I’d find you up here,” a voice called from the shadows near the door.

Damn.

Eric wheeled around, self-consciously shrinking in on himself when his gazed upon the form of the head of the Corporation, Juan Cabrillo.

“Hey, Juan,” Eric responded, trying to conceal his nervousness. “What are you doing up at this hour?”

“Julia and Maurice both came to me,” Juan said to his Helm Officer as he approached the railing. “Independently of course, but both were worried about you.”

“What for?” Internally Eric cursed again. Julia must have gotten fed up with Eric’s causal brushoffs.

“I think you already know,” Juan shot him a look with a raised eyebrow. Eric stayed silent so Juan continued. “Julia pointed out that you look like the dead walking. She said you’ve been having nightmares since the Golden Dawn. Maurice collaborated independently. He says you’ve been up on deck nearly every night since we finished up that business with the Responsivists.”

Maurice is a vampire, Eric concluded. That or an elf. Or a zombie. Or some other sort of non-human creature that didn’t need to sleep.

“I’m fine,” Eric tried to reassure Juan with a half-hearted shrug. “It’s just some dreams. They’ll fade.”

Juan studied him intently. Eric felt like a bug under a very large microscope.

“May I see them?” Juan asked, startling Eric with his non-sequitur.

“Pardon?”

Juan motioned to Eric’s shirtless back. “You scars? I assume that’s what’s bothering you and not the Golden Dawn. Not that I won’t have nightmares from that either, but I think yours are from something else. And this is the only thing that makes since.”

Eric curled further in on himself, like an unhappy hedgehog. “You saw?”

“Just a brief glimpse. But I had my suspicions.”

“How?”

“The way you flinch from certain things: loud noises, a raised hand coming in your direction. You also avoid alcohol like the plague whenever you can.”

Eric thought back to his actions in the past.

“It’s not something most people would notice,” Juan assured him gently. “But I’ve been trained to recognize certain things.”

Slowly Eric uncurled. This was Juan, Eric assured himself. Nothing bad would happen.

“It’s not something I try to think about,” he admitted.

“You told Max and the rest of us.”

Eric grimaced. “Max really needed to hear it. At the place he was in, only something of that magnitude would snap him out of it. And I don’t regret it, it’s just… it brings up memories that I would rather not relive.”

“Your scars?” Juan inquired once again. Eric nodded.

They stood in silence for a time, neither willing to concede. Still, Juan’s calm, patient aura and his kind eyes finally pieced Eric’s skittish defenses. Eric gingerly turned back to face the ocean, allowing Juan an unimpeded view of his damaged back. Eric felt the deck shift as Juan moved closer.

Hesitantly, Juan moved so he could trace a hand over the welts on Eric’s back. The light wasn’t the best so Juan had to feel their severity more than see it.

“These weren’t in your medical file,” he commented lightly.

“The benefits of doctor-patient confidentiality,” Eric managed a small grin. “You should have seen Julia’s reaction. She looked like she was going to personally hunt down my father and mount his head on a pike before I told her he died years ago.”

“I can imagine. I think she had the same expression on when she came and found me earlier tonight.”

Eric held as still as possible as the Chairman ran his fingers over each and every welt on Eric back. There was nothing sexual about his touch. Rather, Juan’s expression held the intensity of a surgeon professionally examining each stitch and making sure his work would ensure healing.

Juan reached a series of raised welts on Eric’s upper shoulder. “A belt, when I was eleven,” Eric admitted without being prompted. “I’d just gotten into a fight with some of the neighborhood boys and actually got in a few decent swipes. Only problem was one of the boy’s dads was something of a big-wig. It didn’t turn out too well for us.”

Juan’s hand continued to glide across the multitude of scars. For every one, there was a story. A broken vodka bottle when dinner was overcooked at age nine on the back of the neck. Five circular cigarette burns from a failed English test at age thirteen on the lower hip. More welts, this time on the left middle of his back from an old cane for trying to defend his mother at age fourteen. They continued on until Eric’s voice grew hoarse from talking. 

Finally Juan stopped his examination. “ _Jesus_. It is a very good thing your father is dead.”

Eric choked out something between a laugh and a sob. He’d never spoken to anyone this much about his scars or his past. Not his mother, not Murph, not one of the ship’s shrinks. Juan’s solemn gaze and sure fingers had done more for his tortured calm than any number of sleep aids or sleepless nights.

“Thanks Juan,” Eric murmured.

“No problem,” Juan replied back, just as softly. Eric suddenly shivered in the cold, shifting Juan’s focus. “Hey, how long have you been out here?”

“I don’t know,” Eric admitted. “What time is it?”

“5:46.”

Eric did the calculation quickly. “Probably about two hours, give or take.”

“Damn,” Juan said. “It’s a wonder you’re not blue from the cold. Come on, let’s get you inside.”

Eric allowed himself to be bundled up in Juan’s robe and lead back inside. Juan surprisingly took him to the Captain’s cabin where, unsurprising, two cups of strong hot chocolate sat waiting for them, still piping hot.

“Maurice is part-fae,” Eric muttered as he picked up one of the mugs. “Or full fae. He can’t be human.”

Juan turned to look at the young man whom he had taken out from the cold. It amazed the Chairman that Eric Stone could still be so innocent considering his history, a history which was still haunting him to this day.

“I’ve been working under the assumption that he’s psychic, but that works too,” Juan commented with a small smile. Innocent or not, Eric was right to think Maurice was supernatural. It was a suspicion Juan himself had harbored for years.

Under the soft glow of Juan’s cabin’s lights, the Chairman got a better look at all of Eric’s scars, once the younger man took off his robe with the intention of returning it to Juan. Juan refused the garment, motioning for Eric to take a seat on the bed.

“Keep it for now. You’re still looking a little blue around the edges. Julia would skin me alive if I let you get a cold.”

Eric nodded and put the robe back on, subconsciously snuggling into its warmth as he sat on Juan's plush bed. Juan’s gaze softened as he looked at his young crew member. He had never once regretted stealing Eric Stone away from the Navy; indeed, every time he turned around, he found himself even more thankful that he’d snatched the younger man up when he had. Eric had turned into an invaluable member of his crew, one whose inner strength, Juan was being to discover, was tempered steel and ran all the way down to his core.

Juan joined Eric in sipping their hot chocolates in companionable silence. The warm liquid brought color back to Eric’s pale face, though his eyes still had the sunken cast which so worried Julia in the first place.

Eric yawned widely once he finished his hot chocolate, setting the empty mug on the side table. The warm liquid and gently rocking of the shipped lulled him into a drowsy half-awake state. Logically his brain told him to make a hasty exit, before he could conk out on his boss’ bed. But logic was losing ground as his week of sleep deprivation finally caught up to him. The final blow came from the Chairman himself, when Juan’s firm but kind voice cut into his foggy brain. “It’s alright Eric. Go to sleep.”

Eric obeyed the voice of the person he respected most in the world and allowed sleep to claim him.

Juan smiled as Eric finally succumbed to sleep. The rest was well deserved and definitely needed. Juan himself had noticed the unhealthy pallor his helmsman had developed in the past week, but Julia's nudge was an unhappy reminder to Juan and Max both that even with Eric's naval background, he was vulnerable in a way they sometimes overlooked.

Eric sighed deeply from amongst Juan's blankets, signalling his final descent into the first uninterrupted sleep he'd had in a week. Juan took that as a sign to escape and leave his crew member with a little dignity. No doubt Eric would be embarrassed enough as it was once he remember that he fell asleep in his captain's bed. Juan quietly changed into clothes for the day, retrieved both used mugs and slipped silently out the door.

Unsurprisingly, both Julia and Max greeted him down the hallway. Julia had alerted both Max and him of Eric’s nighttime troubles yesterday afternoon. Although it had gone unspoken, she had hinted that the troubles came not from the Golden Dawn, but something further back in Eric’s past. Juan had volunteered to confront Eric and get to the bottom of the mystery. After catching a glimpse of Eric’s scarred back in the moonlight on deck, Juan had known instantly that his Helmsman was suffering from flashbacks of his abusive child, brought forth after his confession to Max and the rest of the Ops crew.

“Max. Julia.” Juan greeted.

“Juan,” Max grunted. “How is he?” Juan’s second-in-command’s normally gruff voice was tempered with compassion for their younger crew man. No doubt he too had discerned what nightmares were plaguing Eric. 

“He’s not well,” Juan admitted. “But I think he is finally healing.”

**Author's Note:**

> I did not intend this to turn out vaguely pre-slash, but if you slant, it certainly seems like it is.


End file.
